A crew of four men, including the first turkish astronautarrived at the International Space Station (ISS) first thing on Saturday for a two week stay in the last mission of this type organized entirely with trading funds by the emerging company Axiom Spacebased in Texas.
The arrival occurred about 37 hours after the quartet of Axiom took off Thursday night in a space rocket from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Both the Crew Dragon ship As the Falcon 9 rocket that took it into orbit were supplied, launched and operated by SpaceXof Elon Muskunder contract with Axiomas in the first two Axiom missions to the ISS since 2022.
Once astronauts arrive at the space station, they are under the responsibility of the space station’s mission control operation. POT in Houston.
The Crew Dragon ship was autonomously coupled to the ISS at 1042 GMT when the two spacecraft were flying about 400 km (250 miles) above the South Pacificshowed a live broadcast of the POT.
Both traveled in tandem around the globe at the hypersonic speed of a few 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h) as they joined in orbit.
Once docking was achieved, the sealed hallway between the space station and the crew capsule was expected to take about two hours to be pressurized and checked for leaks before the hatches could be opened, allowing newly arrived astronauts to board. on board the orbital laboratory.
It is planned that the crew of the Axiom-3 pass some 14 days in microgravity doing more than 30 scientific experimentsmany of them focused on the Effects of space flight on human health and disease.
The multinational team was led by Michael López-Alegría65, retired astronaut POT born in Spain and executive of Axiom on his sixth flight to the space station. He also led the first mission of Axiomthe first private trip to the ISSin April 2022.
His second in command at Ax-3 is Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, 49. The team is completed by Swedish aviator Marcus Wandt, 43, representing the European Space Agency, and Alper Gezeravc, 44, a veteran of the Turkish Air Force and fighter pilot, who is making his country’s first manned space flight. .
They will be welcomed aboard the ISS by the seven members of the station’s current regular crew: two Americans from NASA, an astronaut from Japan and another from Denmark, and three Russian cosmonauts.
Since its founding eight years ago, Houston-based Axiom has built a business supplying foreign governments and wealthy private sponsors who want to launch their own astronauts into orbit. The company charges at least $55 million per seat for its services in arranging, training and equipping customers for space flights.
Axiom is also one of the few companies building its own commercial space station, intended to replace the ISS, which NASA plans to retire around 2030.
Launched into orbit in 1998, the ISS has been occupied continuously since 2000 under a partnership led by the United States and Russia that includes Canada, Japan and 11 countries belonging to the European Space Agency.
By Steve Gorman.-
Source: Ambito
